Brazilian artist Jorge Selaron dies

RIO DE JANEIRO —  Rio de Janeiro police investigating the death of Jorge Selaron, a Chilean artist who created the Brazilian city's renowned tiled staircase, believe he may have killed himself.

Selaron's body was found lying Jan. 10 on the very steps he covered in brilliantly colored tiles as a tribute to Brazil. The stairs were declared city patrimony in 2005.

Homicide police chief Renata Araujo said Friday in a news conference that Selaron told friends he was deeply depressed ever since a former collaborator began threatening him. Late last year, he lodged police complaints against the man.

Araujo said the artist's body was badly burned. Beside him was a can of paint thinner and an autopsy showed the liquid was poured on his head.

The 215 candy-colored steps of the staircase in Rio's bohemian neighborhood of Lapa were the life work of Chilean artist Jorge Selaron, and a symbol of his adopted city. On Thursday, they became his memorial.

Rio de Janeiro police found his body in front of his house, one of the humble colonials that face the staircase as it ascends into the St. Teresa Convent above. Visitors dropped flowers and tried to light candles in the blustery weather on his doorstep.

Officials initially declined to give the cause of death and did not rule out a possible murder, according to newspaper O Globo, after the 65-year-old artist was found covered in burn marks near a can of paint thinner.

In November, Selaron told police of threats he had received from a former assistant whose brother was in prison for bank robbery and drug trafficking in Lapa, O Globo reported.

Selaron had spent two decades decorating the staircase from the bohemian Lapa neighborhood to hilltop Santa Teresa. He turned a dingy back alley into a vibrant, tiled backdrop for snapshots, postcards and the music videos of Snoop Dogg and U2.

Lapa has since become a nightly draw for locals and young tourists alike and its white arches figure in FIFA ads for the 2014 World Cup, whose final will be played in Rio's Maracana Stadium. Rio will also host the 2016 Olympic Games.

As it prepares for the global spotlight, the city has sought to play up its wealth of tourist attractions, while addressing security concerns that have lingered since the 1980s, when entire neighborhoods fell into the hands of violent gangs.

In the meantime, neighbors, friends and strangers are in shock over the death of a man who may have been born abroad, but whose open, carefree manner and riotous use of color came to represent the best of Rio. In 2005, the staircase became a city landmark and the artist was declared an honorary Carioca, or Rio resident.

"We can speak of Lapa before and after Selaron. He changed the face of Rio. His death is something brutish, that makes no sense," said Jocimar Batista de Jesus, aka Mestre Duda Pirata, a capoeira master who also lives along the steps and shared many a beer with the artist over decades.

The staircase project began in 1990, when Selaron began tiling the steps and collecting old porcelain bathtubs to use as planters along the sides.

"He had no resources, no support from the city," said Jesus. "The neighbors helped as they could. I brought him tiles from my trips, from Spain, Holland, as I traveled. As it grew, people began to contribute, to send him tiles, to bring them to Rio when they came to visit."

Crowded in a corner are tiles showing a woman in traditional dress from Minho, Portugal, next to a Buddha in seated lotus position, next to a depiction of St. Jorge slaying a dragon. A few steps ahead, Indian deities fan out around a tile representing the principal sites of Berlin. Further up are tiles showing Bob Marley, antique French tiles, and others with flowing Arabic calligraphy, all flanked by the flaming red and eye-popping yellow Selaron chose as the dominant colors.

The artist himself, unmistakable with his bushy mutton chop mustache, was always around, said tour guide Alejandro Martin Barreira.

Often attired in the quintessential carioca outfit of flip-flops and board shorts, and outgoing to the point of offering to take pictures with tourists even before they asked, Selaron was a local character as picturesque and well-loved as his work.

He'd make a little money selling other paintings to people visiting the steps.

"Here in Lapa everyone knew him; he was the face of this bohemian, artistic neighborhood," said Barreira. "He was simple man, who loved this life, sitting here, watching the kids play, chatting people up."

A mysterious image that pops up in all of Selaron's work — a hugely pregnant black woman, often shown holding a fish — makes appearances throughout, some of them discreet, some monumental. In one painting that takes over several tiles, Selaron gives himself, mutton chops and all, the same pregnant belly and prominent breasts, along with a sign that says, "Brazil, I love you."

The artist introduces the character to visitors in his own words, painted, of course, on tile: "On the 7th of December of 1999, I was moved to tears," he wrote. "All that was needed was for me to paint the pregnant woman who is in all my paintings."

He never reveals who she was, writing only it is a personal matter. With that last touch, he ran out of room. So he started substituting the tiles, he explained, turning the staircase into a fluid, evolving piece, perennially changing to reflect the interests, origins or obsessions of contributors, with Selaron first among them.

The staircase that was born of this "great folly," as he writes in a tile, is full of stories, notes, poignant mementos of those who pass by and leave something of themselves.

In one, Selaron thanks a friend for helping out with the tiling. Elsewhere, proud mother Jandira announces the birth of her son Bruno. In one tile, Selaron apologizes to his landlady, Dona Elena, for having neglected to pay rent during the years he spent working on the staircase.

"I hope you understand," he pleads in a piece decorated with the omnipresent pregnant woman.

Selaron meant the work to last a lifetime.

"I will only end this mad and singular dream on the last day of my life," he wrote on the wall.

Several steps above, an anonymous contributor answered, in simple handwriting on a plain tile painted in the green and yellow of the Brazilian flag: "Obrigado, Selaron."

"Thank you, Selaron."

Pedro Fonseca and Brad Haynes of Reuters contributed to this report.

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